Mary Morris, The River Queen

The River Queen

Mary Morris

Holt, Apr 2007, $24.00

ISBN: 0805078274

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In Brooklyn, travel author Mary Morris was mourning the death of her father as her daughter was going off to college when she decided the walls of her empty nest abode were increasing her anxiety caused by these recent reminders of her mortality. The travelogue writer needed something different to occupy her middle-aged thoughts as pictures from the 1920s of her father made her feel she must do something to honor his memory and to get her out of the doldrums. She hires a Mississippi River houseboat the River Queen owned by Captain Jerry to take her down the great river starting in Wisconsin with plans to reach Hannibal, Missouri, home of Twain and her dad, who told her and her brother many river tales.

The memoir is at its best when Ms. Morris observes the "mallization" of the river towns that make places like Dubuque different than what she describes in her dad's vivid images and metaphors. Also fun is when Jerry teaches her how to steer their vessel though she is not a grade A student. When Ms. Morris goes introspective the travelogue turns muddier than the Mighty Mississippi, especially when she rages about her dislikes. Still, this is a fine memoir that is entertaining when Ms. Morris brings to life the changing upper river basin, especially in the latter half of the journey as if the river eventually cleansed the visitor's hurting soul.

Harriet Klausner